MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

MoA – Journalist, Spy Or Cyber Front Warrior?

Posted by M. C. on April 5, 2023

Would the Wall Street Journal even know if the CIA hired one of its journos for a side job?

But fear not, the CIA would never do such:

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/04/journalist-spy-or-cyber-front-warrior.html#more

Journalist, Spy Or Cyber Front Warrior?

Last Thursday, March 30, Russian authorities arrested the Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershovitch:

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was “acting on instructions from the American side to collect information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex that constitutes a state secret.” Gershkovich, who was arrested in the city of Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains region, will be held until at least May 29, according to Russian judicial officials.

The Wall Street Journal said it “vehemently denies” the allegation and demanded that Russia release Gershkovich, who has lived in Moscow for six years and was accredited by Russia’s foreign ministry. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison.

Would the Wall Street Journal even know if the CIA hired one of its journos for a side job?

But fear not, the CIA would never do such:

The arrest shows that Moscow is “increasingly treating the United States as an open belligerent in a war against Russia,” according to George Beebe of the Quincy Institute, who previously led Russia analysis at the CIA.

Citing a 1977 law that banned CIA recruitment of journalists, Beebe argued that it is “very unlikely that Gershkovich is a U.S. intelligence asset or that his reporting was directed or influenced by the U.S. Intelligence Community.”

Surely, the CIA would never ever break a law, says a former CIA analyst …

But why then is the U.S. Secretary of State calling Russia for a talk about the man?

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday held a call with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to discuss Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and US citizen who was detained in Russia last week over spying allegations.

According to a State Department readout of the call, Blinken expressed the US’s “grave concern over Russia’s unacceptable detention of a US citizen journalist” and called for his “immediate release.”

According to the Russian side, Lavrov told Blinken that a Russian court will decide Gershkovich’s fate. “In light of the established evidence of the US national’s illegal activities, his future will be determined by court,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed that Gershkovich, “acting at the behest of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of an enterprise within Russia’s military-industrial complex.”

May be I am naive, but what Gershkovich inquired about was way too much on the questionable side than to be called journalism:

Kevin Rothrock @KevinRothrock – 17:15 UTC · Mar 30, 2023

Journalist @kolezev, who spoke on background to @evangershkovich before his trip to Yekaterinburg, says Evan hoped to intercept employees (literally in the street) leaving the UralVagonZavod plant in Nizhny Tagil or the NPO Novator missile factory in Yekaterinburg, planning to ask them how they feel about the invasion of Ukraine.

This more than the WSJ’s Wagner Group investigation seems likeliest to have triggered the FSB’s “espionage” paranoia. Evan knew the risks but apparently hoped that the FSB would let him be, given that war sentiment isn’t a state secret.

https://t.me/kolezev/13266

Колезев ☮️
Мария Захарова заявила, что «то, чем занимался в Екатеринбурге сотрудник американского издания The Wall Street Journal, не имеет отношения к журналистике». Марии Захаровой, конечно, виднее, ей в ФСБ…

Tass summarizes the accusations:

  • US citizen Evan Gershkovich, a correspondent for the Moscow bureau of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), was detained in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Region, in the Urals region of Russia, on suspicion of espionage.
  • According to the FSB, the journalist was collecting top-secret data about an enterprise within the Russian military-industrial complex in the interests of the United States.
  • The American was detained while trying to obtain classified data.

Yekaterinburg has been a the metallurgical center of Russia for 300 years:

Yekaterinburg was founded on 18 November 1723 and named after Yekaterina I, the wife of Russian emperor Peter the Great. The city served as the mining capital of the Russian Empire as well as a strategic connection between Europe and Asia.

The city grew during the second world war when Russia moved its heavy industry away from the frontline to behind the Ural. UralVagonZavod is the largest tank manufacturer in the world. It is currently producing the T-90 tanks for the Russian army. NPO Novator is making anti-aircraft missiles and other weapons like the Kalibr cruise missiles which are currently in high demand.

To ask workers of such factories how they feel about the U.S. proxy war waged against Russia while that war is ongoing seems a bit off to me.

What would have been the offer by Gershkovich to any worker who would have spoken against the war?

Also, this was about more than just asking random workers:

The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was interested in operation of military-industrial complex facilities in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Region Legislative Assembly deputy Vycheslav Vegner, whom the reporter interviewed earlier, told TASS Thursday.

“[During the interview, Gershkovich] started asking questions regarding the military-industrial complex of Yekaterinburg, he named one such enterprise – ‘Novator’- and so on,” Vegner said.

According to the lawmaker, the reported cited the experience of other regions on industry conversion and asked about the Sverdlovsk Region experience – for example, whether the enterprises change their profile, how many shifts there are, and if they are appropriately staffed. Vegner noted during the interview that he is not authorized to answer such question.

Anything about weapon production numbers or related issues are of course state secrets, at least during times of war. What then do we call such inquiries if not espionage?

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Big mouths for weapons spending are mum on industry backers – Responsible Statecraft

Posted by M. C. on April 4, 2023

Even with appropriations and requests needlessly sky high, think tank experts underwritten by defense firms are calling for more.

AEI does not publicly provide a list of its funders and did not respond to multiple requests for comment about its funding. But the moderator of a public AEI event last year noted that “both Lockheed and Northrop provide philanthropic support to AEI. We are grateful for that support.”

The American Enterprising Institute

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/03/29/think-tanks-pushing-for-bigger-dod-budget-dont-disclose-industry-funding/

Written by
Ben Freeman and Yameen Huq

Earlier this month, President Biden requested the largest defense budget in U.S. history. Even adjusting for inflation, this $842 billion budget — which will likely increase with congressional add-ons and additional spending for the war in Ukraine — could ultimately give the Pentagon more taxpayer money than when the U.S. had more than 100,000 troops on the ground at the height of the Iraq and Afghan conflicts. 

But you’d have no idea that was the case if you read Pentagon contractor funded think tanks’ commentary about the budget, which have been clamoring for even more Pentagon spending, often without disclosing that the beneficiaries of it fund their organizations. 

“For defense, this is a pretty substantial step backwards,” a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) told The Hill. This amounts to a “$28 billion cut to programs and activities” after you account for a troop pay raise and inflation, an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) expert told Defense News, which added that the AEI expert was pushing for a DOD budget of at least $882 billion. That $882 billion figure is, perhaps coincidentally, the exact amount of Pentagon funding another AEI scholar promoted in a recent op-ed for Breaking Defense.

Unsurprisingly, think tank arguments for increasing Pentagon funding have also found their way into mainstream media outlets. The day before the Biden administration released its fiscal year 2024 budget, the Washington Post published an article bemoaning the defense industry’s limited capacity to “build things to kill people,” as the head of a munitions facility told the Post. The piece cited CSIS research on the defense industry’s struggles to replace stockpiles of the tens of billions of dollars in munitions the U.S. has given Ukraine.

Earlier that same week, the Wall Street Journal ran an article proclaiming “The U.S. Is Not Yet Ready for the Era of ‘Great Power’ Conflict.” As evidence, the author cited a CSIS wargame that simulated a Chinese attack on Taiwan in which “the U.S. side ran out of long-range anti-ship cruise missiles in a week.” That same CSIS study was cited in a New York Times article published last week titled “From Rockets to Ball Bearings, Pentagon Struggles To Feed War Machine.”

What goes unmentioned in any of these articles is that these think tanks clamoring for more defense funding are funded by the defense industry.

CSIS is commendably transparent about its funding and provides a publicly available list of donors on its website. And, that list is filled with defense contractors. In total, 20 different defense contractors provided the organization with a total of at least $2.2 million last year. The top defense sector donor to CSIS was Northrop Grumman, which gave the organization more than $500,000. The firm builds many of the military’s weapons, most notably munitions, the organization’s scholars have been pushing.

A spokesperson for CSIS explained that, “CSIS is an independent non-profit with a diverse funding base and the conclusions of our scholars are theirs alone,” and, “CSIS discloses our donors on our website. We also disclose funders of our research reports in the reports themselves. We do this because we believe our audience should know who supports our work.” Yet, this only applies to research reports with dedicated external funding, the spokesperson explained, not work done through general support funding like the CSIS report on the need for investing in U.S. munitions that has been widely cited in media outlets with no disclosure in the report that the munitions in question are made by the organization’s funders. 

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Fauci quietly begins advising mysterious overseas ‘anti-pandemic’ bio lab

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2023

The longtime government bureaucrat links up with infamous Big Pharma heavyweights for new consultant gig.

GSK is known for record setting fraudulent activity. In 2012, GSK agreed to pay a $3 billion settlement to the U.S. government, breaking Pfizer’s record for the largest health-care fraud settlement for a drugmaker in U.S. history.

https://dossier.substack.com/p/fauci-quietly-begins-advising-mysterious?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Jordan Schachtel

In news that has somehow remained entirely unreported in the United States, Dr Anthony Fauci seems to have inked his first gig outside of U.S. Government Health, where he is reportedly still taking a salary.

According to several Italian press reports, Fauci has agreed to serve in a consulting capacity to a newly created “anti-pandemic” bio lab, which is being run by a high-level Italian scientist and longtime pharmaceutical executive.

Italy’s ANSA news wire service reports:

“American immunologist Anthony Fauci has agreed to act in an informal capacity as a strategic advisor to Rino Rappuoli, scientific director of the Biotecnopolo biotech hub in Siena, an institution founded by the Ministries of the University, Health, Economy and Industry with the aim of focusing on applied research in biotechnologies and life sciences, the Fondazione Biotecnopolo announced this week.”

The news was also reported by Italy’s L’Eco di Bergamo and others, but there seems to be no reports on the matter outside of the country.

Biotecnopolo, the newfound bio lab that is funded by the Italian government, is self-described as “an anti-pandemic hub with a particular focus on the development and production of vaccines and monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of emerging epidemic-pandemic pathologies.”

Rome has already committed hundreds of millions of Euros to the noticeably below the radar state-backed project.

Fondazione Biotecnopolo di Siena website

In a press release, a board member declared that Fauci’s new role will be “a fundamental step towards making the Biotecnopolo the Italian hub for the research, study and prevention of pandemics”.

Fauci has not released a statement on the matter. Dr Rappuoli did not reply to a request for comment.

It still remains unclear why Fauci, a lifelong American government bureaucrat, has decided to become a consultant for an entity funded by the Italian government. On several occasions, he has spoken highly about his Italian heritage. In 2020, the Italian government awarded him with the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

Italy and the United States share a lot when it comes to the humanitarian catastrophes our governments imposed in the name of a virus. 

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Wall Street Journal Commits Elementary Economic Error

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2023

Will women who join, or rejoin, the workforce strengthen the economy? Of course, they will, at least in the ex ante sense. But all of human action “strengthens the economy.”

https://open.substack.com/pub/walterblock/p/wall-street-journal-commits-elementary?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android

Luis Rivera

By Walter E. Block

According to a headline blaring on the front page of one of America’s leading newspapers, “Women Rejoin the Workforce, Adding Strength to Economy.” This is wrong in more ways than you can shake a stick at. Strangely enough, as written exactly as is, it is also entirely correct. Let me explain.

Will women who join, or rejoin, the workforce strengthen the economy? Of course, they will, at least in the ex ante sense. But all of human action “strengthens the economy.” A man purchases a shirt for $20. At what rate did he value this shirt when he bought it? Not at $20. Then, there would have been no profit in the transaction for him. Why bestir himself in this manner if he couldn’t even imagine thereby improving his economic well-being? He must have valued this article of clothing at more than $20, say, $25, so there would have been a $5 profit in it for him. Well, I speak too quickly. His main motive in so doing might have been to get a date with the attractive female seller. So, all we can say is that there was something about this transaction, the shirt or something else, or maybe a combination of the two, that he ranked more highly than the sales price. All that of course is ex ante, in anticipation. Ex post, this may or may not have been true. After the fact, he may rue his purchase; the shirt was not that much to his liking, the woman refused his offer of dinner.

The same applies to women rejoining the labor force. They would not have done so, did they not prefer this course of action to all others open to them, such as enjoying leisure, entering college, engaging in child care, etc. The economy necessarily improved, again, necessarily ex ante, but as upon all such occasions, it is by no means certain that this occurred ex post as well.

Now consider an alternative headline: “Women Quit the Workforce, Adding Strength to Economy.” The same identical analysis applies! Females would not have quit their jobs did they not contemplate thereby an improvement in their economic welfare. Perhaps they ranked child care, or leisure, or education, etc., more highly than the money they garnered from their jobs. They necessarily gained, again, ex ante from this decision of theirs, and may or may not have also done so ex post depending upon how they looked upon it after the fact.

The point is, whatever they did, quit, join, rejoin, the workforce, they improved the economic in general, because their own well being was boosted. So the headline was problematic in that it strongly implied that work, not any of these other alternatives, was the path to economic improvement.

What, then, are the unmitigated benefits of laboring, that do not apply to any of these other options? 

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

How the U.S. Came to Use NSO Spyware It Was Trying to Kill – The New York Times

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2023

Under the arrangement, the Israeli firm, NSO Group, gave the U.S. government access to one of its most powerful weapons — a geolocation tool that can covertly track mobile phones around the world without the phone user’s knowledge or consent.

The secret November 2021 contract used the same American company — designated as “Cleopatra Holdings” but actually a small New Jersey-based government contractor called Riva Networks — that the F.B.I. used two years earlier to purchase Pegasus. Riva’s chief executive used a fake name in signing the 2021 contract and at least one contract Riva executed on behalf of the F.B.I.

https://archive.is/aF9iu

Mark Mazzetti
Ronen Bergman

By Mark Mazzetti and Ronen Bergman

The Biden administration has been trying to choke off use of hacking tools made by the Israeli firm NSO. It turns out that not every part of the government has gotten the message.

WASHINGTON — The secret contract was finalized on Nov. 8, 2021, a deal between a company that has acted as a front for the United States government and the American affiliate of a notorious Israeli hacking firm.

Under the arrangement, the Israeli firm, NSO Group, gave the U.S. government access to one of its most powerful weapons — a geolocation tool that can covertly track mobile phones around the world without the phone user’s knowledge or consent.

If the veiled nature of the deal was unusual — it was signed for the front company by a businessman using a fake name — the timing was extraordinary.

Only five days earlier, the Biden administration had announced it was taking action against NSO, whose hacking tools for years had been abused by governments around the world to spy on political dissidents, human rights activists and journalists. The White House placed NSO on a Commerce Department blacklist, declaring the company a national security threat and sending the message that American companies should stop doing business with it.

The secret contract — which The New York Times is disclosing for the first time — violates the Biden administration’s public policy, and still appears to be active. The contract, reviewed by The Times, stated that the “United States government” would be the ultimate user of the tool, although it is unclear which government agency authorized the deal and might be using the spyware. It specifically allowed the government to test, evaluate, and even deploy the spyware against targets of its choice in Mexico.

Asked about the contract, White House officials said it was news to them.

“We are not aware of this contract, and any use of this product would be highly concerning,” said a senior administration official, responding on the basis of anonymity to address a national security issue.

Spokesmen for the White House and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to make any further comment, leaving unresolved questions: What intelligence or law enforcement officials knew about the contract when it was signed? Did any government agency direct the deployment of the technology? Could the administration be dealing with a rogue government contractor evading Mr. Biden’s own policy? And why did the contract specify Mexico?

A close-up photo of President Biden speaking at a lectern.
President Biden signed an executive order further cracking down on the use of commercial spyware on Monday.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
A close-up photo of President Biden speaking at a lectern.

The secret contract further illuminates the ongoing battle for control of powerful cyberweapons, both among and within governments, including the United States.

The weapons have given governments the power to conduct targeted, invasive surveillance in ways that were unavailable before the advent of the tools. This power has led to abuses, from the Mexican government spying on journalists who were investigating military crimes to Saudi Arabia using NSO technology to hack the devices of political dissidents. The use of spyware against journalists and opposition figures sparked a political scandal in Greece.

See the rest here

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Enslaving The World To Stop Chinese Tyranny: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2023

In the year 2023 there’s really no excuse for ordinary Americans to believe any politician is on their side in either major party. The very best of them will only once in a while do the bare-minimum not-evil thing. Don’t make heroes of these scumbags. They’re not your friends.

https://open.substack.com/pub/caitlinjohnstone/p/enslaving-the-world-to-stop-chinese?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android

Caitlin Johnstone

Trump should have stuck to just doing legal things like assassinating foreign leaders, deliberately starving civilians, imprisoning journalists, and dropping military explosives on foreign nations.

❖

If you’re just tuning in, US dollar hegemony and diplomatic dominance are rapidly eroding while the US and its allies accelerate aggressions and provocations against Russia and China simultaneously in a desperate bid to quash the emergence of a multipolar world. I’m a bit less excited about the mounting threats posed to US hegemony than other anti-imperialists, only because a desperate unipolarist empire is a dangerous unipolarist empire. The deadliest time for a battered wife is right when she leaves.

A cornered animal is dangerous, especially when it has sharp teeth. A cornered empire is dangerous, especially when it has nuclear weapons. “If I can’t have you no one can” is a line that can be said to a partner or to a planet.

Abuse victims need to escape, but we may also be heading into the most perilous moment in all of history.

❖

Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz

How is this even debatable? The US Constitution explicitly says in the clearest terms possible that congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, and yet that’s literally exactly the thing that congress is trying to do.

Image

NBC News @NBCNews

“If you don’t like TikTok or Facebook or YouTube, don’t use them. But don’t think any interpretation of the Constitution gives you the right to ban them,” Sen. Paul said, breaking from his GOP colleagues on a measure that would prohibit use of the app. https://t.co/sMNM2wLIxp11:10 PM ∙ Mar 29, 20232,549Likes824Retweets

❖

It’s so crazy that the immensely authoritarian RESTRICT Act is getting shoved through on a tidal wave of consent that’s based on literally nothing besides people’s fuzzbrained artificially-manufactured hysteria about China.

Consent for the PATRIOT Act was manufactured by planes crashing into American skyscrapers and killing thousands of people. Consent for the RESTRICT Act was manufactured by a few right wing pundits stoking a dopey moral panic about an app where kids post dancing videos.

It just says so much about the lies the west tells about itself and its values that the second any social media service becomes widely used you see the entire US security state converge upon it and demand control over it.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

The So-Far Non-Existent Vulkan Leaks – Antiwar.com Original

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2023

Revealingly all three articles include the comprehensively debunked claim that Russia hacked the Clinton or DNC emails. They all include it despite the fact that none of the three articles makes the slightest attempt to connect this allegation to any of the leaked Vulkan documents, or to provide any evidence for it at all.

Note that it is not just the central Hultquist quote which is the same. In each case the teams of thirty journalists have very slightly altered a copy-and-pasted entire paragraph.

It took 30 MSM journalists to produce this gross propaganda. I could have done it alone for them in a night, working up three slightly different articles from what the security services have fed them, directly and indirectly.

https://original.antiwar.com/Craig_Murray/2023/04/02/the-so-far-non-existent-vulkan-leaks/

by Craig Murray

The Guardian, Washington Post, and Der Spiegel have last week published “bombshell” revelations about Russian cyberwarfare based on leaked documents, but have produced only one single, rather innocuous leaked document between them (in the Washington Post), with zero links to any.

Where are these documents and what do they actually say? Der Spiegel tells us:

This is all chronicled in 1,000 secret documents that include 5,299 pages full of project plans, instructions and internal emails from Vulkan from the years 2016 to 2021. Despite being all in Russian and extremely technical in nature, they provide unique insight into the depths of Russian cyberwarfare plans.

OK. So where are they?

Ten different media houses have cooperated on the leaks, and the articles have been produced by large teams of journalists in each individual publication.

The Guardian article is by Luke Harding, Stilyana Simeonova, Manisha Ganguly, and Dan Sabbagh. The Washington Post Article is by Craig Timberg, Ellen Nakashima, Hannes Munzinga, and Hakan Tanriverdi. The Der Spiegel article is by 22 named journalists!

By Nikolai Antoniadis, Sophia Baumann, Christo Buschek, Maria Christoph, Jörg Diehl, Alexander Epp, Christo Grozev, Roman Höfner, Max Hoppenstedt, Carina Huppertz, Dajana Kollig, Anna-Lena Kornfeld, Roman Lehberger, Hannes Munzinger, Frederik Obermaier, Bastian Obermayer, Fedir Petrov, Alexandra Rojkov, Marcel Rosenbach, Thomas Schulz, Hakan Tanriverdi, und Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt

So that is 30 named journalists, with each publication deploying a large team to produce its own article.

And yet if you read through those three articles, you cannot help but note they are (ahem) remarkably similar.

From Der Spiegel:

“These documents suggest that Russia sees attacks on civilian critical infrastructure and social media manipulation as one-and-the-same mission, which is essentially an attack on the enemy’s will to fight,” says John Hultquist, a leading expert on Russian cyberwarfare and vice president of intelligence analysis at Mandiant, an IT security company.

From the Washington Post:

“These documents suggest that Russia sees attacks on civilian critical infrastructure and social media manipulation as one and the same mission, which is essentially an attack on the enemy’s will to fight,” said John Hultquist, the vice president for intelligence analysis at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant

From the Guardian:

John Hultquist, the vice-president of intelligence analysis at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, which reviewed selections of the material at the request of the consortium, said: “These documents suggest that Russia sees attacks on civilian critical infrastructure and social media manipulation as one and the same mission, which is essentially an attack on the enemy’s will to fight.”

Note that it is not just the central Hultquist quote which is the same. In each case the teams of thirty journalists have very slightly altered a copy-and-pasted entire paragraph.

In fact the remarkable sameness of all three articles, with the same quotes and sources and same ideas, makes plain to anybody reading that all these articles are taken from a single source document. The question is who produced that central document? I assume it is one of the “five security services”, which all of the articles say were consulted.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

No More Double Standards and Impunity. West Provokes Russia. Result: Nukes in Belarus on NATO’s Borders — Strategic Culture

Posted by M. C. on April 3, 2023

The United States and Britain fired tonnes of depleted uranium shells during their decade-long illegal war in Iraq. NATO forces also used DU weapons in their war of aggression against former Yugoslavia. In both cases, the resultant radioactive contamination was correlated with high rates of cancer and birth defects in the civilian populations.

https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/03/31/no-more-double-standards-and-impunity-west-provokes-russia-result-nukes-in-belarus-on-natos-borders/

The Anglo-American-led NATO alliance has no longer the presumption of impunity. The decades of unchecked aggression from NATO expansionism and criminal Anglo-American subterfuges in foreign countries are over.

The historic – and unacceptable – deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in several European NATO states as well as the recent announcement by Britain of supplying depleted uranium weapons to Ukraine is the prologue to Russia’s decision to place tactical nukes in Belarus. The Western outcry following Russia’s decision is absurd and hypocritical.

The pattern is familiar and speaks of incorrigible arrogance. The United States and its NATO allies make reckless escalatory moves that are unprecedented in their aggression toward Russia; then Moscow makes a reciprocal move, and yet the Western governments and their dutiful news media become apoplectic with rage over Russia’s “threatening conduct” and nuclear blackmail.

Maybe one day, Western leaders will eventually choke on their own illogical apoplexy.

This week there was frothing and fuming in the West about Moscow’s decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, despite the move being fully in accord with the Minsk government, a longtime ally of Russia and fellow member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The CSTO is organically comparable with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), having a shared defense commitment between allied states that were formerly members of the Soviet Union.

In ratifying the deployment, Russian President Vladimir Putin was accused by Western powers of jeopardizing international security, threatening European neighbors and violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Belarus borders three NATO members: Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

But the decision by Russia to install tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus (which Moscow would reportedly retain control over) was in response to the NATO move to supply its anti-Russian Kiev proxy with depleted uranium (DU) weapons. Britain announced last week that Challenger 2 battlefield tanks sent to Ukraine would be equipped with DU shells. It is understood that the United States is also ready to supply depleted uranium armor-piercing munitions to Ukraine with its Abrams tanks. Video footage from London’s Ministry of Defence shows Ukrainian troops being trained by British and American officers in handling DU shells.

Depleted uranium is a high-density metal – much denser than lead – which can penetrate modern armor. It ignites after penetration and turns into vapor at extreme temperature. While DU shells are not explosively fissile and do not cause nuclear blasts, they do release harmful radioactive contamination into the environment. Arguably, the munitions are therefore a form of nuclear weapon in the same manner as a low-yield “dirty bomb”.

See the rest here

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Pelosi: ‘We Have To Convict Trump On The Charges To Find Out What Is In Them’

Posted by M. C. on April 2, 2023

At publishing time Manhattan’s DA had announced 3,000 additional pages of charges were brought in at 1 AM in the morning.

https://babylonbee.com/news/pelosi-we-have-to-convict-trump-on-the-charges-to-find-out-what-is-in-them

Article Image

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Democrat Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi is calling for a quick conviction of Trump so that we can all see what he’s being charged with.

“Just like we do with our spending bills, we should convict Donald Trump of these charges right away so that we can see what’s in them,” said Pelosi. “Trump has many pages of charges that are probably horrible and we just don’t have time to read them all. Doing it this way is much more efficient!” Pelosi’s statement was then interrupted by her teeth getting stuck in an ice cream bar she was eating.

Sources speculate the list of charges against Trump includes paying hush money to a stripper, colluding with Russia to overthrow the United States government and usher in 1000 years of darkness, and being really yucky and Trump-like. “We don’t need a list of charges to know that Trump is guilty of being Trump,” said Pelosi. “Let’s get this over with already.”

At publishing time Manhattan’s DA had announced 3,000 additional pages of charges were brought in at 1 AM in the morning.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Doctors Report Startling Rise In Testicular Injuries Among Woman Athletes

Posted by M. C. on April 1, 2023

Article Image

NEW YORK, NY — A new study indicates a disturbing trend as testicular injuries in women’s sports are increasing at an astounding rate. Researchers are baffled as these statistics have skyrocketed from literally zero reported testicular injuries among female athletes just a few years ago.

“This new wave of testicular injuries to female athletes has really come out of nowhere,” said Dr. Ryan Kitchen of Boston College’s Institute of Sports Medicine. “Years ago, there were absolutely no reported testicular injuries that occurred during women’s sporting events. If only we could determine what led to this sudden rise. Such a puzzle!”

Institutions around the world have also noticed the disturbing trend and are pouring research dollars into discovering the cause, which is almost certainly a complicated issue with no easy or obvious answers whatsoever.

Critics have argued that it’s not actually possible for a female athlete to suffer a testicular injury. “Yeah, that can’t happen,” said Dr. Adam Kinunen of the Restore Sanity to Sports research group. “Considering the fact that having testicles in the first place means a person is not a female, it would stand to reason that such an injury is impossible. In layman’s terms, these are dudes.”

Trans activist groups have come out in full force against anyone who dares to suggest women cannot have their testicles injured because women can’t have testicles. “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” said Sunshine Fluffsprinkle, spokesperson for Insanity Now, a trans rights group in response to the findings. “BLLRRRAAAWWRRRR FFFRRGGGTHTHTH!”

At publishing time, concerned researchers in the field of sports medicine were consulting with athletic equipment manufacturers to design protective athletic cups specifically designed to protect female testicles.

Be seeing you

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »